A pulsar-helium star compact binary system formed by common envelope evolution
Abstract
A stellar common envelope occurs in a binary system when the atmosphere of an evolving star expands to encompass an orbiting companion object. Such systems are predicted to evolve rapidly, ejecting the stellar envelope and leaving the companion in a tighter orbit around a stripped star. We used radio timing to identify a pulsar, PSR J1928+1815, with a spin period of 10.55 ms in a compact binary system with an orbital period of 3.60 hours. The companion star has 1.0 to 1.6 solar masses, eclipses the pulsar for about 17% of the orbit, and is undetected at other wavelengths, so it is most likely a stripped helium star. We interpret this system as having recently undergone a common envelope phase, producing a compact binary.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2505.15896,
title = {A pulsar-helium star compact binary system formed by common envelope evolution},
author = {Z. L. Yang and J. L. Han and D. J. Zhou and W. C. Jing and W. C. Chen and T. Wang and X. D. Li and S. Wang and B. Wang and H. W. Ge and Y. L. Guo and L. H. Li and Y. Shao and J. F. Liu and W. Q. Su and L. G. Hou and W. J. Huang and J. C. Jiang and P. Jiang and J. H. Sun and B. J. Wang and C. Wang and H. G. Wang and J. B. Wang and N. Wang and P. F. Wang and S. Q. Wang and H. Xu and J. Xu and R. X. Xu and W. M. Yan and Y. Yan and X. P. You and D. J. Yu and Z. S. Yuan and C. F. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.15896},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
26+25 pages, 4+8 figures, 1+3 tables. Published on Science in the 14 May issue of Science. Authors' version